Linkdump 22-05-2016

[gominokouhai]

• Star Trek Beyond Trailer #2 (2016) | YouTube 
  I watched it with the sound off, which is the best way to appreciate Abramsverse Trek, and was satisfied. Then I watched it with the sound on and HOLY SHIT they might actually have made a good Star Trek movie. At the very least, they seem to be developing their own plots. (You just know that Pegg was responsible.) My default policy, as always, is cautious optimism.
  (tags: scifi movies startrek nerd )
• Sting of Myself - The New Yorker 
  How it works in US politics. "The Watergate burglars look good compared to these guys[...] These guys can’t even figure out how to use an Internet browser, let alone conduct an undercover operation".
  (tags: activism journalism fuckwits tech politics usa bloodytories )
• Fear and fascination with a basic income | SWI swissinfo.ch 
  "an elderly party member[...] was worried about losing her cleaning lady" if she had UBI.
  (tags: basicincome politics economy activism europe )
• "Rocky" Theme performed in North Korea - Moranbong Band | YouTube 
  Apparently DPRK's most popular girlband. They're quite good.
  (tags: silly music video )
• All Twisted Up by Gender Bending | The New York Times 
  This stuff shouldn't bother us, but clearly it still does. At least the distinction between sex and gender is getting some play in the MSM. But the thinking here is still distressingly binary.
  (tags: gender sexuality identity intersectionality )
• All the people who have accidentally mispronounced Jeremy Hunt's name on live TV or radio | YouTube 
  "accidentally"
  (tags: silly video politics fuckwits bloodytories )
• The Most Completely Insane Thing I’ve Ever Seen In a Cinema. — Medium 
  "The exec I was talking to sighed, leaned forward, and explained to me that according BBC Scotland that “Scottish people” are more working class and less educated than English people and, therefore, would feel intimidated and patronised if they watched a sitcom that mentioned philosophers, whereas English people can cope with more “cerebral” comedy without feeling as though they’re being made to feel stupid. So if I was going to pitch a script to BBC Scotland then I would have to make sure it was Glasgow, preferably male, centric and with no references to anything that could be construed as “intellectual” or cultured otherwise it would get immediately discarded." This makes a disturbing amount of sense.
  (tags: scottishcringe scotland media comedy northofwatford bloodytories )
• The Forbidden Forest | Orion Magazine 
  The Zone Rouge at Verdun. "At the current rate of clearance it is a conservative estimate that the Département du Déminage will still be finding these weapons nine hundred years from now." Sobering.
  (tags: history ecology )

Comments

[cmcmck]

As a trans woman I guess the idiocy over the pond really ought to bother me but then, I don't have to go there..........

[bcran]

As a trans person living in the US it doesn't really bother me either, since things are a lot more progressive in the state I live in than I ever thought possible. Fortunately the idiocy is mostly limited to states like North Carolina and the Obama administration appears to be on our side, for example with the recent directive about bathrooms in schools.

[clanwilliam]

Many years ago, at a (non-family) wedding in Ireland, I bumped into my sister's uni flatmate who was then working for the BBC on Northern Ireland. Her job was to commission work that reflected the province.

Drink may have been taken. I promptly pitched a Sunday night show (after Songs of Praise and Antiques Roadshow) on a cross-border, cross-faith rivalry between two families of farmers, complete with Romeo and Juliet romance. (My mum is from right on the border; I have stories.)

When we'd finished hiccuping, she made me vow not to write it because "it's perfect for the slot and neither of us could live with the shame of its success.

Mind you, then the Beeb massacred Compton MacKenzie. Maybe I should have pitched it. It would have been better.